Holla

Norway

In the town of Kyrksæterøra in Norway WACKER acquired its first silicon plant effective July 1, 2010. It was a strategic decision towards backwards integration of the WACKER SILICONES business to secure raw material deliveries. The plant has been running since 1964 and has a yearly capacity of appr. 50,000 metric tons of silicon. The process runs continuously and in total 180 employees are running the operations.

Some of the silicon produced at Holla serves silicones production at WACKER’s Nünchritz and Burghausen sites.

Picture Gallery

The rock-hard quartz melts in the furnace.

The carbon in the coal removes the two oxygen atoms from the quartz (chemical name: silicon dioxide) – leaving liquid metallurgical-grade silicon.

Liquid silicon metal flows out of ladles onto a bed of silicon sand, where it can cool and solidify.